Thank you, Ms Fae Ellington

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I applaud Ms Fae Ellington for her commentary re: the depraved lyrics on the Hill and Gully Riddim. The lyrics are atrocious, disgusting and downright vulgar.

I was told after making a social media post about the same issue, that I should accept that such lyrics represented the evolution of Jamaican music, I replied to the person, a veteran of festival songs in Jamaica, that there was a huge difference between evolution of the music, nastiness, and vulgarity that has somehow become acceptable as our culture.

Thanks to Ms Ellington, veteran of Jamaica's culture and all things Jamaican, for calling out the nastiness and vulgarity that has tainted a song which has been a part of Jamaica's heritage and culture, at least she had the decency as someone with values and morals to speak up.

When we accept "garbage" we become "garbage", which was very evident in some of the comments attacking Ms Ellington following her commentary. Comments which spoke to the ignorance and illiteracy of so many within the society who refuse to draw the line when it comes to our culture, music and heritage.

The only song on the Hill and Gully Riddim which did our culture and the elements of the song any justice was the version by the Maroon lady named Hope.

If Hope could choose lyrics which embodied our culture, heritage and the song itself, then what prevented all the others who wrote their own lyrics from keeping it clean?

It is amazing how Jamaicans are arguing with Trinidadians on social media about which Caribbean island is the music capital of the world, while in the meantime they have taken the very music which has placed Jamaica on the map internationally as number one, which has become a cesspool of nastiness, vulgarity and depravity. At what point do we say enough is enough?

MICHELLE BRADSHAW